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Publicis Groupe is set to acquire 160over90 in a bid to win more of advertisers’ spending in sports

Publicis Groupe is acquiring sports-marketing agency 160over90 from WME Group for more than $500 million.

The acquisition capitalizes on sports becoming an essential channel for brands seeking mass reach amid splintering consumer interests.

A new partnership between WME Group and Publicis Groupe will give the advertising giant access to WME’s talent roster.

Publicis Groupe is acquiring the sports-marketing agency 160over90 from talent firm WME Group as sports becomes an increasingly essential channel for brands seeking mass reach.

The French advertising group will pay more than $500 million for the company, according to people familiar with the transaction, and absorb its 670 employees into a unit called Publicis Sports. WME, which was known as Endeavor until going private last year, bought 160over90 in 2018 for approximately $200 million.

The agency is best known for brokering and managing brands’ sponsorship deals with athletes and sports properties. It also runs corporate hospitality and branded experiences at events like the Super Bowl and the Olympics.

Sports has emerged as one of the few pillars of monoculture still standing while consumers’ interests, tastes and time splinter across an array of media channels. The rise of women’s sports has at the same time opened up more sponsorship opportunities to female-focused brands.

Ad holding companies have tried to capitalize by forming new teams to help clients navigate the world of media rights, exclusivity deals, athlete contracts and more. Stagwell in January announced it had spun off its Sport Beach events business into its own company, while the media-buying arm of London-based WPP announced the formation of WPP Media Sports, “a unified, data-driven sports marketing practice.”

Publicis, which owns agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi and BBH, similarly said it would bring more transparency to the disjointed business of sports marketing, a channel that clients have long complained lacks good data to reliably prove a return on investment. It will pitch advertisers on an all-in-one solution: Publicis will broker sports sponsorship deals, but also make the ads, buy the media and work with influencers to amplify them, and boot up its Epsilon data business to measure and adjust for reach and effectiveness, executives said.

“Everything in sports is completely disruptive, the growth has been crazy, but yet it’s fragmented, and the model hasn’t changed in 25 to 30 years,” said Suzy Deering, a former chief marketing officer of Ford and eBay who was named chief executive of Publicis Sports last October. “We’re bringing it all together so that we now have one comprehensive strategy.”

The arrangement will give the advertising giant access to WME’s talent and intellectual property roster, and WME access to some of the world’s largest brands, at a time when celebrities are growing more and more reliant on brand deals to shore up their wealth and fame. WME represents stars including figure skating gold medalist Alysa Liu, tennis champion Carlos Alcaraz, and actors Teyana Taylor and Michael. B. Jordan. Publicis clients include top ad spenders like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.

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Helium Disruption Spells Opportunity for Some Suppliers of the Gas

Scarcity of helium will mean better pricing

The Iran war has cut off about a third of the world’s supply of helium from Qatar. This has been a double-edged sword for helium-supplier stocks. Among them, there is at least one clear beneficiary.

Air Liquide AI -0.74%decrease; red down pointing triangle, Linde LIN -0.39%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Air Products and Chemicals APD 0.26%increase; green up pointing triangle are the three largest suppliers of the industrial gas, which is crucial for chip making. Air Liquide and Linde are headquartered in France and the U.K., respectively, while Air Products and Chemicals is based in the U.S.

The supply disruption’s impact on the companies depends on where they source the helium and how big their exposure is to the gas. Air Products and Chemicals’ shares rose 5.4% in March, while Linde and Air Liquide’s share prices fell 2.4% and 2.6%, respectively.

For Air Liquide, the disruption is a mixed bag because it depends so much on Qatar for its helium. The country accounts for as much as 75% of the company’s supply, compared with about 25% for its two competitors, according to a report from BMO Capital Markets. These two companies rely more on other sources such as the U.S. and Algeria.

Air Liquide subsidiary Airgas declared force majeure last month and told one customer that the company would only meet as much as half of its normal monthly helium demand, as The Wall Street Journal reported. The company also added a surcharge to its contracted price.

Air Products and Chemicals has the biggest potential to profit from rising helium prices. The gas accounts for 5% to 7% of the company’s revenue, compared with 1% to 2% exposure for Linde, according to BMO. Helium accounts for about 3% of Air Liquide’s revenue, according to Citi.

Air Products and Chemicals also has modestly higher exposure to spot markets, according to analysts at Citi. Spot helium prices have more than doubled since the war began, according to Phil Kornbluth, president of Kornbluth Helium Consulting.

The majority of helium is sold through long-term contracts, but companies with helium in storage might be able to profit from rising spot prices. Air Liquide has close to a year’s worth of supply in its German storage cavern, according to Citi. Linde and Air Products both have helium storage capacity in the U.S.

The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, the more bullish conditions will be for industrial-gas providers that can still source the helium. Industrial-gas suppliers are also relatively shielded from rising energy prices because these costs are typically passed through to end customers.

In particular, Air Products and Chemicals’ shares could have room to run further if the disruption continues. The company’s stock has underperformed its peers over the past year. Helium had been a drag on its earnings because the market was oversupplied before the Iran war disrupted Qatar supply. At an industry conference last month, Air Products and Chemicals Chief Executive Officer Eduardo Menezes said that the company has a better chance to renew contracts at better terms as a result of the Qatar supply disruption.

Even if the waterway reopens, it will take time for Qatar’s supply to return to normal because the Ras Laffan complex—where helium is produced—was damaged by Iranian strikes. Qatar has said that the damage cut its annual helium exports by 14% and that repairs could take as long as five years.

Plus, the helium supply chain typically involves long distances with transport often taking several weeks or more, according to BMO, implying that the market could stay tight for a while after helium production resumes in Qatar. Users of the gas, newly conscious of the supply risk, will be motivated to lock in long-term contracts.

A gas few thought about before the war is now front-of-mind in key industries. That could be to the lasting benefit of at least some of the companies that supply it.

Deal for Providence House in central London marks capital’s most expensive house sale

Property developer and Reform UK party treasurer Nick Candy has sold his Chelsea mansion for more than £275mn, according to people familiar with the matter.

The deal for Providence House marks London’s most expensive house sale and ranks among the most expensive in the world. The identity of the buyer is not publicly known, the people said.

When approached by the FT multiple times in recent weeks, Candy denied he was planning to sell the home and threatened legal action. He couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.

UK Sotheby’s International Realty was involved with the transaction, according to people familiar with the matter. It declined to comment.

Located in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the Grade II-listed property had “never been marketed for sale”, said one agent, meaning prospective buyers had approached Candy.

“Any big buyer in the market over the past few years has knocked on his door and a range of figures has been quoted,” the agent said.

The home, whose sale was earlier reported by Bloomberg, was purchased by Nick’s brother Christian Candy in 2012 for about £75mn, when it was called Gordon House. He transferred the ownership to Nick two years later, according to court filings.

Visitors to the house have said it has a private cinema with a “Candy bar” pick ’n’ mix, an underground swimming pool and orangery, as well as a panic room.

There have been a handful of sales at the top end of London’s market in recent years, including the Holme in Regent’s Park, which sold for £139mn in 2024, and the 45-room mansion at 2-8a Rutland Gate, which sold for more than £200mn in 2020. The latter was the city’s priciest residential sale of all time, according to LonRes, which tracks the UK capital’s prime housing market.

More may be in the offing. Shipping magnate John Fredriksen’s Chelsea mansion has been on the market since last summer with a price of about £275mn being discussed, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Candy brothers were principal figures behind luxury Knightsbridge apartment block One Hyde Park, which has been a magnet for oligarchs, pop stars and other super-rich buyers.

A former donor to the Conservatives, Nick Candy last year took up a senior post in Nigel Farage’s Reform party, promising to transform its finances and woo significant donors.

He has spearheaded fundraising dinners that have attracted former Conservative donors, and was present at a December meeting at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida between Farage and entrepreneur Elon Musk.

It was reported last year that Candy and his wife Holly Valance were getting divorced.

The leasehold to Providence House is owned by Providence House LLP, which is owned by Nick Candy, according to Land Registry and Companies House records. A mortgage owed to First Abu Dhabi Bank had been taken out against the property, the documents show.

Another property owned by Candy is on the market with an asking price of £175mn. The five-bedroom, eight-bathroom duplex penthouse in One Hyde Park features “uninterrupted views over Hyde Park”, wraparound terraces and Jacuzzi-style jet pools, according to its listing.

The apartment has an outstanding mortgage owed to the Bank of Singapore, according to filings. The accounts for another company tied to Nick Candy suggest the mortgage originally stood at more than £80mn.

Oil traders that normally thrive on volatility caught out by scale of crisis as energy shock unfurled

The world’s biggest energy traders struggled to capitalise on the market turbulence in the early days of the Iran war, as they grappled with fuel tankers set ablaze, missile attacks at oil terminals and vessels stuck in the Gulf. 

While wars and big swings in energy prices typically result in bumper profits for energy traders, some were caught on the wrong foot when the Iran war broke out on February 28, with short positions in certain energy markets that had long been seen as oversupplied. 

Energy trader Vitol was among those to face setbacks, as it had more than 10 cargoes stuck in the Gulf at the time the war started. Trafigura had 10 ships inside the Gulf, which were all leased to other companies and which were not carrying its commodities, while Glencore had one.

Mercuria and Trafigura both nursed losses in the early days of the war, although some of these have since been reversed, according to market participants. Vitol, Mercuria and Trafigura all declined to comment.

The chaos at the start of the war, when it was unclear whether Gulf oil supplies would manage to keep flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, had left everyone unsure of their position, said one trading executive.

Vitol, the world’s largest independent trader, has been particularly exposed because it moves a lot of oil in the Middle East. After Iran in effect shut off Hormuz passage, two vessels carrying Vitol cargoes of naphtha that were trapped in the Gulf were set ablaze by Iran on March 12, killing one crew member, the company has said.

For its remaining vessels stuck in the Gulf, the cost of insuring and operating the vessels has skyrocketed as the conflict continues. Insurance costs for ships in the Gulf, which are set weekly, have risen more than sixfold since the war began.

Vitol also had to relocate staff from Bahrain, and deal with disruptions at the oil-exporting port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, where it owns a refinery and storage facilities. 

Oil infrastructure at Fujairah has been struck a number of times by Iranian attacks, although Vitol’s infrastructure has not been directly affected.

Even as the Iran war has triggered a huge surge in energy prices and high volatility — normally conditions in which trading houses thrive — many initially struggled to handle the huge disruption. 

At Vitol, the pain of the physical disruption and stranded cargoes was compounded by losses on certain derivatives trades, according to people familiar with the matter.

While market rumours of billions of dollars in losses at the top trading houses have been circulating, people close to the companies said they were not true, or that the scale of any losses had been grossly exaggerated.

Several junior derivatives traders recently left Vitol, according to people familiar with the matter, but it was not clear if this was the result of any wrong-way bets on the market. Traders often move in the spring after bonus season.

“In the current environment it is extremely difficult — it is a complex and delicate task” to deliver the cargoes where they needed to go, said Jean-François Lambert, head of Lambert Commodities.

However he added that the volatility would also present a “fantastic opportunity” for trading houses. “Probably 2026 will be a very good year from a profitability perspective,” he said.

Previous periods of high volatility have resulted in bumper profits for trading houses. Vitol, Trafigura, Mercuria and Gunvor all reported huge profits for 2022 and 2023, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine sparked an energy crisis.

However, the current crisis is quite different. The challenge of simply securing cargoes has also become significant, as the vast disruption resulting from the war leaves traders unsure whether cargoes they have bought and hedged will arrive or not.

The wild swings in commodity prices and the closure of Hormuz have prompted trading houses to secure additional lines of credit, which they can use to cover their margins. 

Vitol and Trafigura have both secured additional $3bn credit facilities, while Gunvor has secured $1.5bn.